Pages

Wednesday, 19 September 2012

In his Sunday Best Suit - Sepia Saturday

Sepia Saturdaygives bloggers an opportunity to share their family history through photographs.

I don't have a jailbird in the family, as far as I know. So I decided to focus on the little boy- standing up straight, looking smart in his jacket and knee breeches. It is the females of the family who usually get featured for their costume, but here from my family collection are four boys in their Sunday best.

Frederick Henry Weston (my Uncle Fred), born 1905.

This photograph has only just come into my possession via a distant relative and is one of the very few early photographs I have of my father's Weston family.

The story was that photographs were thrown out followinga death.

What a crime!

Harry Rawcliffe Danson, (my Uncle Harry), born 1912

﻿

Harry's middle name came from his grandmother Maria Danson, nee Rawcliffe. This is a section of a larger photograph (below) showing Harry with his mother Alice, sisters Edith and Kathleen (my mother) and baby brother Billy, taken in 1916 - the year when his father William Danson went off to war in Flanders.

24 years later Harry survived the Battle of Dunkirk. He retained his good dark looks all his life.

Below are two photographs from the large collection left by my Great Aunt Jennie (Danson), who grew up in Poulton-le-Fylde, Lancashire. She had written names on the back, but otherwise little is known about them. I suspect they are the children of friends, but I was unable to make any headway in further identification through a search of the 1911 census.
﻿

Jackie Threlfall

﻿

Jesse and Bernard PenningtonTo read contributions from other bloggers on this theme, click here

28 comments:

There's something so charming about those little boys in sailor suits isn't there? Uncle Fred looks a little unsure to be perched so high on a chair, but the last two of Jesse and Bernard certainly bring out the mothering instinct. Gorgeous.

I notice that Harry's middle name is Rawcliffe, the surname of his grandmother. That is a custom that is forbidden in The Netherlands. It is not allowed to give children first/middle names equal to surnames. The reason is probably to avoid confusion. I like Jackie's picture best. He is giving us this who-are-you-then look. Great!

Thanks, Peter, for your commwent. i had no idea using surnames as middle names was banned in the Netherlands. I like it, as it preserves maiden names down the generations and is quite a common feature where I live now in the Scottish Borders. But it can get confusing with a Scott Elliot and an Elliot Scott, where both Scott and Elliot are used as Christian names and surnames.

Well, the Netherlands is a land of rules. So there is one that says if your mum's name is the last in line, you are legally allowed to add it to your surname. Of course there is a separate procedure for that purpose... :)

I have a photo of two boys on a bench in little sailor suits similar to Jackie. Interesting that in the Netherlands it is illegal to give a last name for a first or middle name. It was a popular custom on both sides of my family for children in my generation. A cousin and I both have our mother's maiden name of Graham and two cousins on my father's side have Cleage for their middle name.

The photos are so wonderful. The little boys all dressed up for the photograph. It is a shame, when these beautiful old photos are just thrown out. It happens all the time in families. I also think those photos become very precious, as today in the age of the digital camera we snap millions of photos of children. Then, there were just a few. Beautiful post.

Times have certainly changed we have only a few hard copy photos of our children, even fewer of our grandchildren but hundreds of digital images of them. We have no pictures that can match as far back as your Uncle Fred and Harry.

There is something about that picture of your Uncle Fred that makes me go back and look again - the expression on his face, the oversize hat, that band around his waist with his hand tucked in it... Great pictures. Thanks for sharing.

About Me

I have been interested in family history for years. It all began when I was allowed as a child to look through the old family photographs and memorabilia kept in a shoebox in the cupboard at my grandfather's house. That treat started me on a fascinating ancestral trail.